girl.

"Wait a minute," interposed Parr again. "Let's take stock of ourselves.
Haldocott and Jeffords killed--and a couple of others--"

Shanklin barked at him. "You don't give orders any more. We've got a new
chief, and you're just one of the rabble, like me." He made a heavily
gallant bow toward the latest arrival. "May I ask your name, lady?"

"I'm Varina Pemberton," she said. "But what's the meaning of all this?"

Shanklin and Sadau began to explain. The others gathered interestedly
around. Parr felt suddenly left out, and stooped to look at the dead
Martian. The body wore several useful things--a belt with ammunition and
a knife-combination, shoes on the thickened ends of the tentacles, and
that strange armor. As Parr moved to retrieve these, his companions
called out to halt him.

"The new chief will decide about those things," said Shanklin
officiously. "Especially the gun. Can I have it?"

To avoid a crisis, Parr passed the weapon to the girl, who nodded thanks
and slid it into her own waist-belt. Shanklin asked for, and received,
the knife. Sadau was the only man slender enough to wear the shoes, and
gratefully donned them. Parr looked once again at the armor, which he
had drawn free of its dead owner.

"What's that for?" asked Shanklin.

Parr made no answer, because he did not know. The armor was too loosely
hung together for protection against weapons. It certainly was no
space-overall. And it had nothing of the elegance that might make it a
Martian uniform of office. Casting back, Parr remembered that the
skipper had worn it at the time when he, Parr, was landed--but not
during the voyage out. He shook his head over the mystery.

"Let that belong to you," the girl Varina Pemberton was telling him. "It
has plates of metal that may be turned to use. Perhaps--" She seemed to
be on the verge of saying something important, but checked herself.

"If you'll come with us," Sadau told her respectfully, "we'll show you
where we live and where you will rule."

* * * * *

They held council that night among the grass huts--the nine that were
left after the unsuccessful attack on the patroller. Varina Pemberton,
very pretty in her brief sports costume, sat on the stump that was
chief's place; but Shanklin did most of the talking.

"Nobody will argue about our life and prospects being good here," he
thundered, "but there's no use in making things worse when they're bad
enough.